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ce between themselves and the fort, and they were weary and footsore. Gus Robbins, especially, was nearly "done up." He was in a worse condition than Talbot was, for the latter seemed to have slept off the effects of his wound. George felt the greatest compassion for Gus, and offered to lend him his horse; but Bob, who had grown somewhat hardened to suffering during his experience in the army, positively forbade it. "It wouldn't do, George," said he, looking admiringly at his friend's sleek, well-conditioned animal, which was constantly champing his bit and tossing his head as if he were growing impatient at the slow progress they were making. "Gus would make a break for liberty sure, and as that nag of yours is able to distance anything in my party, I'd have to--" Here Bob tapped his carbine significantly. "That's something I don't want to do. Gus isn't so nearly exhausted as he seems to be. He is more distressed in mind than he is in body, for he is thinking of the prison at Fort Leavenworth. After we have gone a few miles we will rest them by taking them up behind us, but it wouldn't be a very bright trick to give one of them a horse to himself." About eleven o'clock a halt was ordered, and the deserters, who were riding behind the troopers, having dismounted, Corporal Owens took Carey off on one side and gave him some very emphatic instructions. Then he and George also dismounted, and, leaving their horses behind, made their way cautiously toward a ridge a short distance in advance of them. As they neared the top they threw themselves on their hands and knees and crept up until they could look over it. They were in plain view of the squatter's cabin at which the troopers had stopped to eat their dinner the day before. Bob took just one look at it, and then hastily backed down the ridge again. "Did you see that fellow chopping wood in front of the shanty?" said he, addressing himself to George. "That's the man I am looking for." "Are you sure?" "Am I sure that I have a pair of good eyes?" asked Bob in reply. "Of course I am. I recognized him in spite of his citizen's clothes. That squatter has rigged him out in some of his own duds, but they'll not save him if I can manage in some way to get between him and the cabin." "Perhaps, in order to make 'assurance doubly sure,' you had better take my field-glass and have another look at him," said George. "A false move might prove fatal to you, for it would show
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